Prabasi History : প্রবাসীর ইতিহাস

Prabasi History

How Prabasi was formed?

One fine afternoon at San Pablo Dam of May 1974, the Bengalis in the Bay Area kicked around the idea of having a Bengali organization while having a beautiful time at the picnic. Some senior members of the community, Ramen Chakraborty and late Jnanen Tarafder, asked Satya Ray to organize a Bengali organization as he did Tagore society in Boston, Massachusetts. Tagore society was purely a leisurely conversation over a cup of tea which, incidentally, is a great Bengali tradition. At that moment Prabasi was conceived. The first meeting was called at the apartment of Lincoln Ave, Alameda where about forty enthusiastic Bengalis met to nurture the conceived idea of forming a Bengali Association. After long deliberations, an interim name Tagore Society was given. This sounded like a national chain of Bengali organizations started at many other places at that time. This was a pure coincidence and resulted from our love, affection, and respect for Rabindra Nath Tagore.

The final moment came when we gathered on July of 1974 to witness the birth of baby Prabasi. As a member of a traditional society, we started with a traditional structure which is very common in India. The first president was Sri Ramen Chakraborty as a head of the organization, and Sri Satya Ray was the first general secretary and the chief executive officer. We used to conduct all our businesses through the elected area representatives who would decide how many people would attend from an area, how much food would have to be prepared by the delegated members and the like. We kicked off Prabasi's program with a celebration of independence day on 15th August and a colorful children sports. A Bengali School was formed by Mrs. Sumitra Ray, and Mrs. Sarbani Ghosal at El Cerrito residence of Tushar Ray. The Bengali community was very small those days, about seventy families or so, and it was like a big family where everyone used to participate in Puja, cultural programs, cooking, etc. according to their area of interest.

In 1978 under the presidency of Sri Mritunjoy Ghosh the structure of the organization was amended to the present form where the president is the chief executive officer who selects his team to execute the affairs of the organization.

The next significant move for Prabasi was in 1983 when she got herself registered as a non-profit organization in California to give some tax incentive to its members, and was registered as Bay Area Prabasi Incorporated. The state of California requires a permanent body to deal with the organization; so the Board of Directors was formed in 1984 to handle liaison with the government, auditing, and organizing unscheduled programs. The execution of yearly scheduled programs are conducted by the president.